Means to an End
by Witch of Darkness
Summary: You do realize, said Dr. Kurasawa peering over the rim of her glasses, that in order to restore your clan, you will need to form a lasting relationship with a member of the opposite sex. And so Sasuke's troubles begin. Second Chapter Added! Find out wh
1. Chapter 1

A/N Hey! Hey! Come one, come all! And read the greatness that is this wonderful fic. It was born from the fevered imaginations of my friend **Maru to Moro **and myself one summers evening whilst contemplating the fact that Sasuke, really, when you think about it, has the world's most boring and pathetic life. This combined with the realization that he has virtually no skills with women and yet holds the burning desire to replenish his clan, gave birth to this fic.

**Disclaimer: We do not own Naruto or the rights to it. We don't even own Kakashi, (sweet, wonderful, sexy Kakashi) but one of us does have a small Kakashi shrine in her closet.**

Sasuke stared at the clock and sighed, oh god this was going to be a long hour. For the last three weeks on Mondays and Thursdays he'd been coming to see Dr. Kurasawa for some (in Kakashi's opinion) much needed therapy. It had been in Sasuke's opinion a bloody great waste of time. He could be training or going on missions of vital importance but nooo, he was stuck here talking about his "feelings." Feelings weren't really something people like Sasuke bothered with. They really did detract from the dark, vengeful persona he'd spent so many years honing to perfection. Really, this therapy nonsense was beyond pointless. Kakashi though, seemed to think differently and as such, Sasuke once again found himself lying on the sofa in Dr. Kurasawa's tastefully decorated office which had been painted in the most soothing of colors. He hated mauve.

"So you're saying," said Dr. Kurasawa, "that because your brother murdered your clan depriving you of everything and everyone you ever held dear at the tender age of eight, you have trouble bonding with other human beings?"

Sasuke grunted in reply. The trick with this was to say as little as possible in the vaguest most general of terms. Unfortunately, the good Dr. was uncannily perceptive, to the point where Sasuke seriously considered the possibility that she could read minds.

"You do realize," she said peering over the top of her glasses at him, "that in order to achieve your goal of reviving your clan, you're going to have to develop a lasting relationship with a member of the opposite sex."

Although he gave no physical indication that these words had any effect on him whatsoever, Sasuke felt his insides freeze up. She was right. It had never occurred to him before but if he wanted to continue the Uchiha line, he was going to need a wife or at the very least a girlfriend. Crap, he thought as his mind came to grips with this startling realization.

IIIIIIIIIIII

Later that day….

Well, thought Sasuke, no time like the present to give this whole "relationship" thing a try. After all he was 17 and had as of yet never had a girlfriend. He supposed Sakura sort of counted but she was really more of a stalker if you thought about it. _Let's see,_ he thought surveying the women nearest him on the street, _no not that one, ewww, not that one either. Hmm, might work. Aha! There we go. _Across from the street from him, exiting a bakery after buying what looked like a dozen or so sticky buns, a pretty brunette with long hair and a really rather well shaped nose was now making her way in the direction of a produce stand. Giving her a more careful look-over, Sasuke was pleased to see she was also rather well formed in the area of the hips and breasts. Good for child bearing, he thought. Shoving his hands in his pockets, Sasuke made his way over to her.

"Will you go out with me?" he asked without preamble.

The girl turned suddenly almost dropping an orange, and stared at Sasuke with a kind of open mouthed bemusement. "Whaaa?" she replied.

"Uh…will you go out with me?" Sasuke reiterated, not meeting her eyes but instead staring fixedly at the orange still clutched in her hand. It made an interesting contrast to the dark green of her Chunin uniform.

"Er," she said, "you're Uchiha Sasuke right?" He nodded. "Um, I guess I could. Uh here." With that she whipped out a scrap of paper and a pencil while the orange was left to make its own way in the world. Sasuke vaguely wondered why she had a piece of paper so conveniently handy but his thoughts were sent adrift as said piece of convenient paper was thrust roughly under his nose.

"It's my name and address." she said, "Pick me up at seven?" Sasuke nodded his assent, slightly pleased that he'd gotten a date set already. The hard part would come later he supposed.

IIIIIIIIIII

Later that evening….(presumably after seven)

The restaurant Sasuke had chosen was a nice one. The atmosphere was cozy and 'The Connoisseur's Guide to Konoha's Finest Dining' had given it three and a half stars. He'd prepared for this date to the best of his ability and so far things were going well. He'd turned up at **_Toyama Mutsumi's_** residence at exactly seven o'clock with a single red carnation. She'd giggled and blushed and he'd really hoped she didn't turn out to be a giggler, he hated gigglers. Fortunately she had stopped, settling for smiling prettily while looking very cute in her flouncy purple dress and watermelon shaped earrings.

Now they came to the first and perhaps most essential part of dining out, ordering food. After taking the requests for dinner, the waiter turned to Sasuke, "Anything to drink Monsieur?"

"Water," was all Sasuke said.

"Just water?" asked Mutsumi.

"Easier to detect poisons," was the blunt reply.

Mutsumi looked slightly startled but said nothing.

For the most part, Sasuke thought things were going well, but then, Mutsumi attempted to make polite conversation.

"So Sasuke," she said batting her eyelashes, "what do you do for fun?"

Sasuke thought about this a moment and then remembered how Dr. Kurasawa had said to be more honest and open. "I wallow," he said at last, "in self pity."

Mutsumi's smile seemed to have frozen, as though not quite sure if it really wanted to be a smile anymore. She made a great effort though, hitching it back on and saying, "anything else?"

"I stew," said Sasuke.

Mutsumi looked a little blank before saying slightly desperately, "Oh so you uh, like to cook?"

"No," said Sasuke, "I stew in self loathing of my own weakness. My inability to kill my brother."

Something about Sasuke's dark murderous aura must have put Mutsumi off a bit because suddenly she said with mild hysteria, "I have a parakeet, do you have any pets?"

"No."

"Um, favorite color?"

"No." There was a pause, "black."

Fortunately, Mutsumi was save by the arrival of their dinner, and for a while all was well as they ate in silence.

As Sasuke chewed a bite of chicken, he glanced thoughtfully at Mutsumi, he liked her well enough he decided. She talked rather a lot but less than some. She was cute too, nice teeth and a strait, perfectly symmetrical nose. Finally deciding to cut to chase, Sasuke cleared his throat, after all this whole dating thing was just a means to and end. "Will you marry me?" he said.

Across the table Mutsumi choked on a bite of soufflé. After much hacking and wheezing she finally looked up at him, eyes wide in panic. "Uh," she said, "er, uh, I have to uh…go to the bathroom! Be right back." With that she disappeared.

Back at the table and several minutes later, Sasuke was becoming nervous, she wasn't back from the bathroom yet and it was entirely possible that that bit of soufflé had come back to choke her again. Flagging down a waitress he asked her to check the bathroom for Mutsumi.

Meanwhile, in the women's bathroom, Mutsumi was about half way through a complicated series of hand seals that in theory would cause her to trade places with the nearest yak, hopefully somewhere in the mountains. This was an ancient and very secret ninjutsu passed down through her family for generations and was only supposed to be used in the most dire of situations. Unfortunately, the waitress came in interrupting the finely controlled line of chakra required of this specific ninjutsu.

"Your date was looking for you," said the waitress.

"Oh," said Mutsumi, "um I'll be there in a minute."

Several minutes later Mutsumi was indeed back at the table with the date in question.

"So," said Sasuke, "will you…"

"Waiter!" Mutsumi called very loudly, and a waiter rushed over. "Dessert please, ice cream, and quickly."

Several agonizing moments later, in which Sasuke had thankfully not proposed again, the dessert arrived.

"Wow, this is good ice cream," Mutsumi said wildly, having cast about for something to distract them both from…that… "cold though," she said with a small laugh, "might even say icy."

Sasuke nodded slightly, stirring the ice cream around in its ornate silver dish, once again he made the unfortunate decision to go with honesty "my heart feels icy sometimes," he said listlessly, "kind of frozen, like my soul."

Mutsumi blanched, sputtering a bit on a bite of ice cream. It really was lucky ice cream was so soft. "Check please!" she called.

After Sasuke had paid and they were standing outside the restaurant, he looked at Mutsumi again. She'd seemed to have had a good time, a bit nervous though, but then again they said women got like that sometimes. "You never answered my question," he said looking up at her. For some reason, the light from the street lamp gave her a slightly terrified look.

"Oh!" she gasped looking down at her bare wrist, "look at the time. I've got to go and uh, floss my, uh…iguana!"

"I thought you said you had a parakeet," came Sasuke's slightly confused response.

"Oh right," Mitsumi said nervously, "listen Sasuke, this was uh…fun, but I've go to go." With that she took off at a sprint pausing only to say, "Don't call me, I'll call you!"

"Wait!" called Sasuke, "You don't have my phone number!" By that time though, she'd vanished into the night. Sasuke sighed and put his hands in his pockets. So much for continuing the Uchiha line.

THE END

A/N Poor, poor Mutsumi. We pity her greatly. I mean really, actually having any kind of relationship with Sasuke would suck big time. The man does nothing, Nothing! Well, besides wallowing, stewing, brooding and training. Ah well, he'll always have Sakura. (poor girl) and Mutsumi will always be able to pull that yak trick of hers.


	2. Chapter 2

**(A/N)** Hello! Witch of Darkness here again in collaboration with Maru to Moro. We have decided to continue the story of Mutsumi the **summary for the story that follows being thus: **Mutsumi goes to a bar one night to drown her sorrows after a series disastrous relationships and winds up with some most…unusual company.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto.

Mutsumi gazed dismally down towards the bottom of her glass, her woefully empty glass. "Bartender!" she hollered only slightly drunkenly, "I need a refill on my Cosmopolitan."

The bartender sighed, they got people like this in the bar all the time. The sad, lonely types with nothing left for them but the resolute and steadfast comfort of a bottle. Personally, he hoped it was the foreign, expensive kind of bottle but hey, a bottle was a bottle, and after three or four most people entered the "Happy" phase of drunk and started tipping generously.

Meanwhile, Mutsumi, who had gotten herself all tarted up and come down to a bar for nothing, was entering a very different phase of drunk; thinking morosely of her latest failures. Why? It just wasn't fair, she was happy, and cheerful, ate her vegetables, cleaned her room and yet life just wasn't living up to her expectations. It wasn't her career she had a problem with, oh no, she was a fine, upstanding ninja who was perfectly happy running messages and chaperoning dignitaries around the fire country and the assorted allies thereof. She wasn't phenomenal by any means but she'd pulled herself out of a few scrapes most successfully and with dignity intact so on that front things were just swell thank you very much.

It wasn't her friends and family either, no, her parents were dead so no argument from them on anything and she'd long ago dealt with the loss, such being the life of a ninja. Her friends were a cheerful crowd, primarily formed of her fellow chunins and a few others she'd picked up here and there. They were supportive and lively and in general perfectly agreeable people. Being ninjas there were a few inconsistencies, Seiji still thought his pet frog was alive and even took it on walks (it had been dead for about five years but no one had the heart to tell him) but that was about it.

No, these were not the areas which presented the problem at hand. You see, Mutsumi, like most young women often entertained dreams of romance, of candle lit suppers, and of long walks on the beach with a charming companion of the opposite sex. It was from this wish that her troubles seemed to have sprung. Mutsumi hiccupped slightly as the bartender refilled her drink.

God, she just could not seem to win. Sighing and leaning back slightly on her barstool (which might have been a bad idea considering the effect alcohol has on ones sense of balance) she surveyed the room. To her left was a chain of the usual losers one finds in bars at varying times of day, behind in the booths were groups of men and women sometimes together sometimes not, all of whom seemed to be getting on swimmingly (bastards) and to the right a mysterious, cloaked figure who veritably oozed a sense of danger and the thinly veiled aura of deadly resolve native only to the most highly trained of assassins. It was an aura Mutsumi was strangely familiar with. Then again, growing up in Konohagakure and imbibing a goodly number of alcoholic beverages would familiarize and inure most people to such auras. In her inebriated state, Mutsumi decided he was a soul in need of company and who might present a sympathetic ear. (Not bad to look at either, a little blurry, but not bad…he was vaguely familiar too.)

"You alone too?" she addressed the stranger as she scooted over to sit next to him, her black, leather miniskirt squeaking as it slid over the red, pleather covering the bar stool.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Itachi was not enjoying himself. He didn't usually go for such things as "enjoying himself" but in this instance the lack of enjoyment was particularly noted. This unhappy state of affairs was due in no small part to his being in a bar. The Akatsuki did not work out of bars, nor did they meet people in them. In fact, the Akatsuki in most instances had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the establishments. It just didn't work with the image they were trying to create. The Akatsuki did not meet, nor were they met, they simply appeared and disappeared without ever having registered in the consciousness' of those with whom they interacted. Actually, after a meeting with the Akatsuki very little registered in the consciousness' of those with whom they interacted as in general, they were no longer possessed of one. To top off Itachi's overall un-enjoyment of the evening as he waited for his contact, some prostitute seemed to be hitting on him.

Itachi glared at the offending woman as she gazed blearily at him out of doe like brown eyes. Or at least they would have been doe like but they were red and blood shot either from some form of drug addiction, or too much to drink. (It was possible she may have been weeping as women sometimes did for no reason whatsoever but Itachi didn't think it likely.) Regardless of her appearance, Itachi decided he ought to get rid of her as her presence might interfere with his business but then again miniskirt clad women might do something to improve his image. (Kisame had recently been making a number of not so subtle innuendos regarding his sexual orientation.) The choice was soon taken out of his hands however.

"Bartender!" the strange women called, "get another drink for my friend, he's having…What're you having?"

As it happened, Itachi had been drinking soda water (easier to detect poison) but before he could answer the woman, (Itachi was beginning to think she wasn't a hooker at this point as they didn't usually spend so much time on formalities or money on drinks) had ordered him a glass of something clear and strong smelling. Possibly rubbing alcohol. The woman had ordered a glass of it for herself and was soon swigging away merrily.

"Excuse me," said Itachi coldly, "but I am otherwise engaged this evening."

She sighed and crossed her legs, the miniskirt squeaking yet again, as she ran a hand through her long, brown hair. "I wish I were otherwise engaged, but I haven't been otherwise engaged for about a month. I don't get it. I mean I'm sweet and funny and a C cup but ever since that stupid Sasuke all the guys I've dated have been so weird."

At this point Itachi had begun to notice certain peculiarities about her person. For instance her fingers and palms were callused and her fingernails cut practically short. She was amazingly agile for one who had drunk so much and even in the dim light he could detect a faint tan line running across her forehead of a most specific shape. There were numerous other such peculiarities to be noted and it didn't take long for an individual of Itachi's mental prowess to surmise that she was a ninja. To be specific a chunin level ninja of the hidden village of the leaf specializing in defensive nin-jutsu and tai-jutsu. (Hey, you weren't a genius for nothing.) Itachi was drawn from his momentary perusals of her person as she had continued speaking.

"I mean I had really thought that it would be fun. Because Sasuke was, well all the girls wanted him and he was so handsome and talented and mysterious, but then when we were actually talking all he does is obsess over this revenge thing. It's pathetic. He has no life."

Itachi was deeply gratified to hear it.

"And after that I thought it would be okay and I'd just find someone normal if slightly more interesting to go out with but I'd made friends with this really nice girl named Sakura and she said that her ex-teacher needed to go out with someone and I thought why not? I mean older men are supposed to be interesting and mature right?" At this she let out a long mirthless laugh. "I have never been so wrong."

She looked at Itachi and he couldn't help but notice that she had the sort of haunted look usually found in torture victims and people who spent a lot of time around him.

She continued with her story. "That bastard was THREE hours late. And do you know what he did while I was there?" She didn't wait for a response. "He read his dirty, echi, Icha Icha Paradise books that's what he did." She fumed.

Itachi was slightly stunned by the passion with which she spoke as well as the lethality of a few of her gesticulations and had just begun formulating a plan to wipe the smug looks off of Kisame's face, (girls on the rebound were always easy) when she again gazed up tearfully from her drink and opened her mouth. It seemed the saga of her woes wasn't finished.

"After Kakashi I swore off men for awhile," she began tremulously, "but then I met this guy who was visiting from wind country, Gaara, a little bit younger than me, but he was so sweet and vulnerable and…" she sighed, "We dated for about two weeks and everything was really nice. He said he didn't have a lot of experience with dating so I chose most of the things we did and he was such a good listener most of the time. He said he was trying to learn more about people and I was so flattered that he was paying attention to me and not proposing (Itachi wondered at this) that I didn't think there was anything wrong with his being kind of quiet. At least he showed interest in things unlike some other people I've mentioned, but then one day he walked me home and I leaned in to give him a kiss and…well let's just say I spent a week in the hospital with sand related injuries. After that there was a wall between us. He said I'd startled him and that he was really sorry, but it was like the trust was gone."

Itachi wondered at the statistical probability of sequentially dating three of the most psychologically disturbed individuals in the country. Now he was quite disturbed in his own right, about that he had no illusion, but Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi _and_ Gaara? Combined they had enough neurosis, pathologies and general abnormalities of thought to send every therapist, psychiatrist, and neuropharmacologist running for the hills. Still…, he glanced at Mutsumi, (as she had loudly introduced herself to him upon having first appeared) she was currently staring sorrowfully into space while leaning, arms folded, slightly forward on the bar in front. The resulting effect being that her ample bosom was placed most advantageously in a position of greater prominence. She turned her head to look at him and Itachi was struck by the fact that she was actually quite pretty. Her eyes were large, and she had what was quite possibly the most perfectly symmetrical nose Itachi had ever seen. Hmmm…the image of Kisame's smirking face drifted through Itachi's mind, maybe she'd want to make it an even four.

**(A/N) ** Poor, poor Mutsumi. She just can't catch a break can she?


End file.
